This invention relates to containers with safety caps, and more particularly, the invention relates to an improvement over the invention described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,135 issued to Michael A. Yung and Bob Mar, the applicant herein.
Various state and federal regulations require or will require that medicine bottles and bottles containing poisons have safety caps which cannot be opened by young children. Such caps are typically tested by placing them in the hands of children below the age of five years to determine how many of the children can open them within a five minute period. The caps must, however, be readily openable by an adult, and it is expected that as a child matures he will also be able to open them.
A number of containers with safety caps or stoppers have been invented. In one design, the user must obtain the correct rotational alignment between the cap and the container lip before the cap can be lifted off. In another design, the user must simultaneously push the cap downwardly against the container lip and rotate the cap relative to the container so that the threads on the container lip and the cap become engaged and the cap can be screwed off of the container.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,768, assigned to the applicant herein, discloses a three-part cap comprising a stopper seat which may be permanently attached to the container or bottle, a stopper which may be hinged to the stopper seat, for example, by a flexible hinge, and a pin which is positioned and adapted to slide in the stopper from one recess on one side of the stopper seat, through a slide channel in the stopper, into a recess on the other diametrically opposed side of the stopper seat. A tang is provided on the protruding end of the pin so that a user can grasp the tang with his fingernail to withdraw the pin from engagement with the slide channel in the stopper, thereby allowing the stopper to be removed from the stopper seat.
The above-referenced patent issued to Yung and Mar discloses a container with a safety cap or stopper which is an improvement over the invention disclosed in the above-referenced patent assigned to applicant. The flange of the stopper is permanently connected to the lip of the container by a U-shaped hinge member. No stopper seat is required. The underside of the stopper is provided with a slide channel which extends diametrically across the stopper and receives a pin. The slide channel and pin have mutually engaging stops which prevent complete withdrawal of the pin from the stopper. The lip of the container has a pair of diametrically opposite recesses which are in alignment with the slide channel and receive the pin. One of the recesses is formed in the shape of an inverted T. When the stopper closes the container, the pin can be pushed inwardly and a pair of ears on one end of the pin will fit within the circumferentially directed slots of the T-shaped recess. The other end of the pin will fit within the opposite recess. In this manner, the stopper is locked to the container. When the pin is pulled outwardly a predetermined distance, the other end of the pin will become disengaged from its corresponding recess, and the ears on the one end of the pin will become disengaged from the circumferentially directed slots of the T-shaped recess. The narrower portion of the pin can be freely lifted through the T-shaped recess and the stopper can be lifted to open the container. The upper side of the pin adjacent the ears is provided with a tang which can be grasped by the fingernail of a user to pull the pin outwardly.